*In most schools, scores for reading proficiency are higher than in other subject areas overall.

Charter schools have expanded to serve more than 140,000 students in the state of Michigan, but not all are performing as well as other public academies or their competitors in public school districts.

That’s why Michigan school Superintendent Mike Flanagan has given notice to the universities, colleges and other entities that authorize charter schools that he is cracking down.

fLANAGAN RECOMMENDS THESE POLICIES

Flanagan is strongly encouraging Michigan’s charter school authorizers, that have not already done so, to minimally adopt the principles and practices set forth by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers as a good faith effort. Included are:

• Clearly identify school governing board as ultimately responsible for the success or failure of charter school

• Prohibit the management company from selecting, approving, employing, compensating, or serving as school governing board members and require them to disclose and explain any conflict of interest.

•Require governing board - not the management company- to directly select, retain and compensate the school attorney, accountant and audit firm.

•Require payments from the authorizer go to an account controlled by the school governing board, not the management company. •Require all purchases to stay with the school, not the management company;

•Grant charter school renewals only to those that have achieved the standards and targets in contract and are organizationally and fiscally viable;

*Clearly communicate to schools the criteria for charter revocation, renewal, and non-renewal.

•Require evidence of a management company’s educational and management success;

•Require a proposed agreement with a management company to include performance evaluation measures, fee structures, financial controls, oversight and disclosure, and renewal and termination details;

Flanagan said in a press release he will end their ability to create future charter schools if their existing ones don’t meet Michigan Department of Education criteria.

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Flanagan met with the charter school authorizers in February. He challenged them to maintain the integrity of the original promise of the charter school movement. That intent was to provide high quality education options and cultivate better outcomes, especially for low-income children. He challenged them to root out the bad actors and build public confidence in the administration of their schools.

Twenty-six charter schools are operating in Oakland County with a concentration in Pontiac, Waterford and Southfield. Most are created by universities and have a special theme or goal.

Among those with the majority of charter schools operating in Oakland and surrounding counties are Central Michigan University, which was the first to create such schools around the state; and others, such as Bay Mills Community College, Oakland University, Saginaw Valley State University, Lake Superior State University and others followed suit. Their performance varies.

For example, the Michigan Education Assessment Program fourth grade reading results for the 2013-14 school year show 70 percent of students in all Michigan schools were proficient and 76.7 percent in Oakland County schools.

In the Oakland County, where many charters are located, the proficiency average in fourth-grade reading was 68.9 percent in the Waterford school district, 64.2 percent in Southfield, 30.5 percent in Pontiac; and 74.7 percent in the Holly School district.

Among the charter schools located within their boundaries, the proficiency ranked from 95 percent to 31.3 percent, with most between 40 and 50 percent proficient.

Oakland Schools Intermediate District Superintendent Vicki Markavitch, long a critic of charter schools being run by for-profit businesses, was happy to learn of Flanagan’s new stance.

“The school community has been pointing out the need for quality, accountability and transparency in charter school use of public money, especially with the for-profit charters and management companies,” Markavitch said.

“Abundant legislation exists requiring community governed schools to report and list on their websites very detailed information on their spending of public tax dollars.

“Charters and their management companies have found ways to avoid the same level of transparency. As 80 percent of Michigan charter schools are run by for-profit companies, one can only wonder if the profits being made are the reason for such secrecy.”

Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, who advocates for choice in education, wants Flanagan to be just as tough on public school districts whose schools aren’t performing..

“It’s refreshing to see Supt. Flanagan say it’s time to get serious about quality choices for Michigan students. We hope he’ll focus on failing traditional public schools with the same energy that he approaches failing charter public schools. He should start with the 20 schools MDE has ranked as the ‘worst of the worst’ in each of the past four years, and then look at schools running illegal deficits,” Naeyaert said.

Dan Qisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, said, “We support the state superintendent’s ability to suspend any authorizer that isn’t acting in the best interest of students. He has had this authority for a number of years.

“We urge the state superintendent to base his decisions on academic performance and to work on oversight of all public schools. In order to do this, we need a true accountability system that accurately assesses student growth.

“Charter schools have always been the most accountable of all public schools. What we need now is legislation that holds all public schools to this same level of accountability,” Quisenberry said.

For their part, the universities that have authorized charter schools, which includes the responsibility to monitor them, said they support Flanagan,

At Oakland University, Judeen Bartos, executive director of the Office of Public School Academies, added, “Let’s support what works and change what doesn’t.

“Although we believe our authorizing systems and procedures adhere in practice and in word to the accountability and standards mentioned in Flanagan’s press release, we welcome opportunities to enhance our operations and continue to provide quality educational choices for all families,” Bartos said.

At CMU, the state’s leading authorizer, Cindy Schumacher, executive director of The Governor John Engler Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University, also voiced support of Flanagan and said she is confident in CMU’s authorizing practices developed over the past 20 years.

CMU has closed 15 schools in the past five years for failure to meet expectations and deliver the quality education that students deserve,” Schumacher said.

“CMU has received perfect scores” following two voluntary visits conducted by the state. In addition, The National Association of Charter School Authorizers has acclaimed CMU as a model authorizer across the country, Schumacher said.

Parents choose the free public charter school academies not just for high MEAP scores, but for a variety of reason such as types of programs offered, location, proximity to their job, smaller classrooms, hopes for increased achievement and a desire for a safer environment.

Denise Diller, for example, chose Holly Academy for her daughter because she was concerned about rumors of bullying in other schools. Flanagan has directed staff at the Michigan Department of Education to establish rigorous principles that measure the transparency, academic and financial practices of the charter schools of each authorizer. The result of these measures will determine which authorizers would lose their chartering capabilities.

“We are getting serious about quality choices for Michigan students,” Flanagan said. “This is not just about getting academic results. It is about total transparency and accountability.”